This past summer, Behemoth’s Nergal was allegedly kicked out of a YMCA for not believing in Jesus and wearing a Darkthrone shirt. Everyone, including us, believed in Nergal’s ejection story as Darkthrone themselves responded to the incident. Apparently, this never happened. Nergal wanted to stir the pot due to the enjoyment of trolling. The Behemoth frontman recently spoke to Kerrang! and revealed the following:
“Honestly, I have no idea. First of all, people misinterpret things on the spot. They don’t ask questions anymore. It made headlines everywhere. And I like stirring the shit up – that’s my nature. I like trolling, and I like provoking people. Remember that story of me being rejected from the YMCA?
Orion [Behemoth bassist] and I went, but we had to go back to another gym, and I just made up the story that we were rejected because of our beliefs, blah, blah, blah. Man! It made headlines all over the place. People are being fucking outraged… people saying that I should get beaten, that my opponents would just be happy about that. And I’m just reading all these comments and all these headlines and I’m going like, ‘Why?’ No-one would bother to ask me if it’s true – because it wasn’t true – I made up a story. It was again another occasion that I realised how it’s easy to manipulate people, how to fool them around and just make whatever you want to do.”
Speaking of controversy, Nergal said the following on his Antifa t-shirt controversy:
“So we were in Finland and someone left this ‘Black metal against Antifa’ shirt, and one of the guys wore it. So, again, I took a photo of that and made a quick comment. From my observation, every time I hear about concert cancellations from bands that I know, and I know for a fact that are everything but political – the last thing you could say about Bölzer and several others – is that they’re fascists. They are not. Because if they were fascists, we wouldn’t be friends. Everyone now who knows me knows that I am anti any totalitarian regime. So I made the point that, ‘Hey, Antifa, if you guys want to fight fascism, use your brain first’, you know? Because you’re aiming [at] the wrong targets. And I’m pissed off, because it’s stupid. And it’s also the reason that the world is so imbalanced.
It’s one radicalism replaced by another. All of a sudden, I was accused of being sentimental about Hitler, which I find, frankly, disgusting. Why would you even say that? That’s stupid. So I came up with this metaphor. The way that the world thinks, these days, in its majorities, is like, ‘Are you against Hitler?’ You say, ‘Yes, I am against Hitler.’ ‘Well then, you must be a Stalin supporter.’ Or, ‘You’re against Stalin? Then you must be pro-Hitler.’ That’s how people think these days. They think black and white. There are no in-betweens, no grey spots. There’s no middle ground. It’s either this or that. The world is bipolar, all the way through. Which is very unjust, and stupid.
So for me, it’s like, ‘Guys, give me the right to think that both are assholes, and they killed 50 million people.’ I want to be in the middle, and I’m in the middle and I have my opinion: both [sides] are shitty. So hey, Antifa, I know that I generalise. Someone kinda gave me some extra knowledge; that there’s a German Antifa that actually know what they’re doing, and I don’t really know much about that – I just know that they attack venues, they attack people physically, but on many occasions they just don’t know who those people are.
And if you follow my social media, you know that I’m pro-LGBT, I’m always pro-womens’ rights. When it comes to black metal, I’m way too liberal for how conservative this genre is. But then again I’m way too old to pretend. Whenever I think the world is unjust, and there is no justice, I just say something. And I understand that for some people it’s not very comfortable, what I’m saying. But the last thing you should do is to accuse me of any radicalism. I said that several times, too: I love my art to be radical and extreme. This is the spot where I go. This is my place. But offstage? Man, I’m just a liberal with a big mouth. That’s all I am.”
Read the full interview on Kerrang!
[via ThePrp]
